The View from the Balcony

When he was diverted from a fashion assignment and ordered to cover the European Security Conference in Helsinki for an Italian weekly last July, Freelance Photographer Franco Rossi, 35, was impressed by the elaborate security arrangements--at first. From his balcony perch in Finlandia House he watched no fewer than seven U.S. Secret Service men checking the area where Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger were to sit. "I saw them even taste the water in Ford and Kissinger's carafes," says Rossi. The photographer had been standing at his tripod for three tedious hours when finally, he recalls, "I saw that Ford was passing a note to Kissinger. So I took a few frames." To his astonishment, Rossi realized that Ford's note--advising Kissinger that the speech they were preparing was too long-winded and gloomy--was perfectly legible through his 600-mm. telephoto lens. "Do we need to place East and West in [adjective indecipherable] confrontation? Why not amplify HOPE, which all want?" Ford urged in his handwritten note.

After 20 minutes of cutting and brightening the speech, Kissinger opened his briefcase and took out three folders. When Kissinger came to a document marked TOP SECRET SENSITIVE EXCLUSIVELY EYES ONLY CONTAINS CODEWORD, Rossi clicked away at 1/30 sec., f/5.6 with TriX rated 1200 ASA in his 35-mm. Canon equipped with 600-mm. lens. What the camera recorded was a report on diplomatic relations between Paris and Hanoi based on information from "an established CIA source with excellent access" in the French Foreign Ministry. According to the CIA source, the French felt "deceived by Hanoi's assurances that [North Viet Nam] would not invade the South." Piqued, "Paris now refuses to grant Hanoi new credits until the situation in the South clarifies and until Hanoi or Saigon makes a preliminary acknowledgement of debts contracted by the Thieu government."

Says Rossi: "It seemed incredible that they could have overlooked such a basic point--that photographers use telephoto lenses. It seemed like a huge joke." Italy's Domenica del Corriere and The Netherlands' Nieuwe Revue last week gave their readers Rossi's photos. Paris-Match also purchased the pictures but claimed that it did not have the space to run them. Some cynics suggested, however, that Match's restraint might have something to do with the French Foreign Ministry.

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